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Yahoo's Voice Search Ambitions

Yahoo has just invested $20 million in vlingo a voice recognition company specializing in the mobile market. Yahoo!, leveraging this relationship, announced the launch of a voice-enabled version of Yahoo! oneSearch, a new mobile search client that supports unstructured, open-ended voice searches that allows the consumer to speak their query as they would type it into the search box.

One can imagine many applications of voice search such as the integration of GPS/mapping or SMS communications while driving.

Of course this information is not lost on Microsoft as they picked up the leader in this space, TellMe a while back. To be fair, TellMe uses speech recognition in the cloud meaning it is not hosted on devices.

Microsoft already has a speech recognition application for Windows Mobile devices but to date it has not integrated this technology into search.

See vlingo Secures $20 Million Financing Led by Yahoo! by TMCnet's Anil Sharma.

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HD Voice goes Hosted

I have long mentioned there is an opportunity to start using stereophonic, surround sound quality in IP communications as the quality of phones today is just atrocious.Thankfully, Polycom, Skype, Microsoft and others have embraced this concept with their wideband codecs. Polycom dubs their solution HD Voice and I am happy to report that service providers are beginning to support this new standard in their hosted solutions

According to TMCnet's Tim Gray, IP 5280 is rolling out a hosted solution which supports Polycom devices which specifically support HD Voice.

Of course HD Voice only works if both (or all) parties in a conversation use it. So for now, within the company, call quality will be great. People connected via SIP trunks will also experience this better call quality which transmits 2 or more times the frequencies of traditional toll grade calls.

The next step is to ensure we have transcoding gateways that allow Microsoft's codecs, Skype and any other high quality codecs to be seamlessly connected with one another.

Once this begins to happen, we can have truly high-quality sound on virtually all of our phones.

Of course the one challenge we face as an industry is the devices... Especially cell phones as I am not sure wireless carriers having paid billions for spectrum want to start doubling the bandwidth requirements of their phone calls.

This is where WiFi and potentially WiMax come in.

The transition to higher quality voice calls is fantastic for the communications market as it means there is yet another benefit to upgrading phone systems.  There is a tangible benefit to using higher quality codecs and now that we are moving to an all IP infrastructure, future quality improvements can be made seamlessly.

For my international readers... There are 5280 feet to a mile which one would imagine is related to how IP 5280 gets its name.

Related communities/channels:

• HD Voice
• IP Communications
• IP PBX
• Hosted PBX
• SIP Server
• Bandwidth Management
• SIP Trunking
• Broadband Telephony
• IP Phone System
• VoIP
• VoIP PBX
• VoIP DSP
• VoIP Developer
• VoIP Services
• Business VoIP

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